CURRENT MISSION

Go big or go home.

ABOUT ME

Show don't tell. Participants not observers. Less talking, more doing. Getting past the small talk.

Art, music, Painting, hula hooping listening to records in my sunglasses singing loud, beach picnics, walking tours, adventuring, taking photos, running my mouf, talking sense, writing, volunteering, managing and organizing things, fixing your tabletop cause you have no appreciation of aesthetics, brushin my teeth for 15 minutes at 5:30 every morning, throwing grapes at Ben to catch in his mouth, learning new skills, languages, baking bread from starter, brewing beer, playing dress-up, my bicycle, drawing, health food learning, vitamin queen.

Introspection, circa Nov. 2012:

I spent the last two years living in San Francisco an working in Accounting and Finance at a broker/dealer, followed by a 3 month stint on the East coast to study Mandarin (I can use some practice speaking- I can't quite think well in Mandarin yet).

Being from New Jersey (I've been told that Dongbai is China's equivalent), I inherited the intense, dichotomous nature of my mother state. Work hard, play hard. Go big or live at your mom's addicted to painkillers. Moorestown, NJ- 2005 best town in America, only ten miles from Camden, NJ- a top ten most dangerous city in America.

I love my idealism, but it is heavy, and I wish I was better at converting thoughts into actions and outcomes. It's probably fair to say that I'm a little too serious. I'm forever chasing greener pastures and blowing my mind with crazy intellectual adventures (like Godel Escher Bach, etc.) I used to or spend four hours a day or so working on art. I had an easygoing job in high school and traveled a lot. I was lighthearted, free spirited, and saw the best in people.

I am in my mid twenties now, and, while I was never not 'on top of it,' for the past two years, I have felt the promise of dawn and the horizon- having your whole life ahead of you, and all the energy of youth to go with it, passing faster than I care for. After two years in an office job, which was at first a massive clean-up job and challenging and intellectually stimulating, followed by a year of repetition and no chance of mobility, I find myself as free spirited as ever, but having drifted too far from the producing artist
I was. That lightheartedness has given way to an anxiety to find a more satisfying way to spend my days- that appeals to my skills, passions, and need for ambition.

And now, I head to Asia, to master a non-romance language and give my neural pathways a good, hard rewiring, To think about where to direct my energies next, and to invest some time in art and taking it slow. Any advice is appreciated, We'll see where it goes.

PHILOSOPHY

I am an avid journal keeper, and entirely too introspective. Existential thought loops, dada detours, ennui pitstops. Life is art.

Life to me is watching water spiral down a drain and making what you will of it. There is something beautiful and powerful in giving up, in just stopping caring. It's liberating and electrifying. The closest parallel that I can think of is working through pain- it's like looking down a jagged well: you can't see the bottom, can't hear a dropped stone splash, and there's no option but to confront it and dive down. But once you let go, make that dive, exhale, you are surprised that all there is to find is a hookah den with some soft lilting music and a peculiar sense of timelessness.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Bike(s) possibly available for borrowing.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Toenail painting and mudmask parties available by request.

Interests

Vegan! But I'm open minded about it, what you do is what you do.

Dancing, hula hooping, thinking, finding epic views, crossing bridges (uh, not metaphorically, but sure- metaphorically, too- why not?), debate, surprising myself, AM jogs, the very occasional TV/movie sess (you need something to take a break from, no?), meeting people, scenic walks, long talks, learning just about anything, drinking, car shows (I'd love myself a project car), being productive, working on personal goals, self-improvement, my bicycle babies, painting, drawing, writing (all night sessions, anyone?), the SF tech/entrepreneur scene, photography (particularly of rooms, still lifes, and incredibly vibrant people), getting awkward-fitting, hideous, tacky, or gawdy outfits from the thrift store ( I do wear these out in public, and quite frequently at that, thankyouverymuch), enjoying parks-sun-beach-fun, random urban adventures, doing things, reading, and some more productivity sprinkles just to emphasize that one.

going to whatever event the wind blows me to, meeting people alone where I am/feel completely unrestrained from being whoever I want to be and jiving however I want to at that moment.

I eat at home all but two or three meals a month: I'm into health food, and a spice fiend (ever use shots of hot sauce to chase cheap tequila? Awww yeah, that's what I'm talking about). I have poor circulation, the spice helps. I legitimately like kale. My daily vitamins outnumber my grandma's prescriptions.

• arts
• culture
• writing
• singing
• photography
• festivals
• dancing
• dining
• beer
• baking
• vegan
• running
• walking
• partying
• drinking
• thrifting
• technology
• reading
• tv
• socializing
• homebrewing
• painting
• drawing
• investing
• music
• cycling
• boxing
• entrepreneurship
• languages
• volunteering
• tours
• beaches
• parks

Music, Movies, and Books

MAMAS AND THE PAPAS
MAMAS AND THE PAPAS
MAMAS AND THE PAPAS

Hector Lavoe
Deep house, house, trap
Ta-ku
Allah Las (& classic surf)
Fifth Dimension
Steely Dan

Books:
Godel, Escher, Bach
William S. Burroughs
The Art of Loving (Fromm)
Stanislav Grof
Tom Robbins
Henry Miller
Erica Jong
Foucault
Anti-Oedipus
The Tao
Alan Watts
Thoreau
Faulkner
Hunter S. Thompson
Bukowski (in Spanish)
Human, all too human (Nietzsche )
Hemingway
Sartre
Tom Wolfe
The Phantom Tollbooth
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
American Realism & Naturalism (i.e. the Octopus, Stephen Crane's Maggie // social darwinism)
Fraternity Gang Rape
poetry (Cin Salach, James Broughton, Rod McKuen, Space Child's Mother Goose, Lorca)
Diane DiPrima
I once went on a Puerto-Rican author binge.

Movies:
Eraserhead
Man Ray + avant garde films. Any classic cinema really, I love ubu
About Time (1962)
The Point
The Graduate
Lolita
Apocalypse Now
American Beauty
Priscilla Queen of the Desert
John Waters movies (Cry Baby, Pink Flamingos)
Pulp Fiction
American Hustle
The Usual Suspects
Repo Man
Max Headroom
Almost Famous

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Gave up on caring sometime in 2008 or 2009 (I don't have an exact date). Checking off that little box in the fine print [x ] Opt out of receiving any more communication from Bad Days.
Living with minimal inhibition ("not giving a fuck")
Dancing, unrestrained.
Some amazing festivals.
Being in a revenge-of-the-nerds frorority,
Finding dazzling pockets of the most awe-inspiring counter culture communities, and being blown away by what hides in shadows of status quo nights.

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

China, Hong Kong, United States

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